Taiping Houkui • 太平猴魁

2009 Taiping Houkui • 2009 太平猴魁

A few weeks ago, I posted about comparing Taiping Houkui at Kkik Da Geo and thought I'd do a follow up.

The comparison was between an authentic 2009 and an imitation from earlier this year. Though the imitation was still nice, it's hard to choose against authentic, and I brought 50g of it home.

Though I fully accept that this blog may put me in the upper echelons of tea snobbery, I'm normally a rather humble guy... To prove it (is trying to prove humility still humble? oops!), I'm not above using a $4 mason jar instead of a fancy $25 French press for steeping! (-_^). It is an Italian mason jar, so I guess it's still a snob-level mason jar... Anyway, I punched a few holes in the lid to pour from and gave it a try.

It wasn't totally ideal, it was tricking to pour (I hadn't considered the heat of the glass) and a little too big, but after a couple of adjustments, it did the trick. Some green teas can stand a little hotter water, this is not one of them. Also, the width of the jar was much wider than the the proper glass vessel, making the amount of leaves to use harder to judge.

I also tried using a "new zhuni" Draon Egg potthat I keep for white and green teas. I thought it's height would be enough but it was still too short to hold the extremely long Taiping Houkui leaves. But after just a few seconds in water, they softened enough to slip into the pot, like pasta in boiling water. The results of the zhuni pot were excellent, the only drawback being that you miss the "phoenix dance" as the leaves swirl around the pot.

Overall, I found this tea to be unforgiving. If the water was even slightly too hot, the taste was unpleasant and other times I wasn't able to get much flavour from it at all. Once I become better acquainted with its mood, I should find more consistency. Though it's challenging bothDragon Well and Bi Lo Chun for top green tea, I think that I still prefer Dragon Well.

What drew me the most to Taiping Houkui are its unique, long leaves. The cultivar used for Taiping Houkui, Shi Da Cha, is exclusively used for this tea, it isn't found in any other tea growing region, and is the reason for its sharp, blade-like shape. Buds with five leaves are initially plucked, then during the processing the bottom two leaves are removed. Most green teas are roasted and rolled but these leaves ate flattened with mesh and baked, leaving their original appearance somewhat intact.

Taiping Houkui • 太平猴魁 (authentic 2009 vs 2nd grade 2013)

At the tea house the other night, Mrs Kim did a comparison of their authentic Taiping Houkui 2009 vs a second grade spring 2013 production. Following the trend of many other teas, of the last few years authentic, long leaf Taiping Houkui is nearly impossible to find outside of China. Production is very small, requiring great skill and care to harvest at process only the most perfectly formed leaves. Since the Panama World Expo in 1915, Taiping Houkui has won several awards, including the title, King of Green Tea, in 2005. What we do find on the market is a shorter leaf version with a much brighter green colour.

On the left is the 2009, and on the right is this year's spring harvest. The differences in size and colour are obvious. The authentic version has leaves up to 15 cm long, much longer than the lower grade leaves. 

Starting with the 2009, Mrs Kim dropped a few tong-fulls of leaves into a glass infuser. The traditional technique is to cover them them water, then swirl them around in the infuser. As the leaves soften in the water, they swirl gracefully around like ribbons. In China, this part of the process is known as the Phoenix Dance.

The 2009 Taiping Houkui produced a bright golden infusion. The smell and taste were comparable to the deep roasted bitterness of Dragon Well and highlighted with a strong burst of sweetness on the tongue. 

Next came the 2013 Taiping Houkui. The infusion was noticeably greener and slightly stronger with an overwhelming grassy flavour. Though it had freshness on its side, it lacked the dynamic range of the real deal.  

Comparing the used leaves, some further subtle differences emerge. The meticulous selection of the 2009 leaves were more luminous and had perfectly clean edges, a trait of the rare cultivar use exclusively for Taiping Houkui to produce young leaves of this size. The inferior 2013 sample showed thicker, jagged leaves, lacking the distinctive youthful characteristics of the original. Straining my ear to follow Mrs Kim's instructions and descriptions in Korean, for her final appraisal, she broke out in English, referring to the 2009, "This tea is more beautiful!"